Aderyn Du
by ZScalantian
Summary: Qrow tries to be casual, Summer gets embarrassed easily, Taiyang gets embarrassed even more easily, and Raven never gets embarrassed at all. Team STRQ on a winter's night, being dumb teenagers with confusing feelings.


The doors hissed shut behind him, cutting off the cold air. Qrow stamped the slush from his boots and brushed off his shoulders. Tiny white snowflakes fell to the grey floor mat and melted instantly. He crossed the lobby to the stairs, careful not to slip on the slick tile. The carpeting on the stairs was brilliant red at the edges, but the center was dark with damp footprints. He took the steps two a time.

He turned the corner from the fourth floor landing, humming a little under his breath. _One, two, three things are difficult for me…_ It was always the old songs he thought of, when his mind was buzzing. He'd been antsy all the way back from town. The parts he'd ordered had finally come in, and he was eager to get to work.

He almost stumbled over Summer in the hall, and jerked back, startled. She was wearing red tights, almost the same shade as the carpet, and her white cloak had the hood pulled up, a perfect match to the pale walls. Her face floated like a ghost against snow as she looked up.

"Sorry," he offered, willing his pulse to calm. "What's up?" She was sitting down with her back to the wall beside their door. A physics textbook was perched on her knees, and an open notebook sat beside her.

She shrugged, spinning a gnawed-on pencil in her fingers, and nodded towards the door. "I didn't want to go back out in the snow, but the room's occupied. So here I sit."

Qrow followed her gaze. The gap at the bottom of the door had been blocked with a fluffy towel - a draft excluder, but more than that. A Do Not Disturb sign.

He shifted from foot to foot, suddenly uncomfortable. Summer noticed, and scrunched her face up comedically. She stage whispered, "This is so inconvenient. We ought to break them up."

He laughed a little at her delivery. "Until the weather gets nice again, at least."

She grinned and stood, her cape parting as she did so to show the black skirt and blouse beneath, dispelling the ghost effect. Even in her heeled boots, the top of her head was no higher than his shoulder. She bent and stuffed the books back into her schoolbag, then grinned up at him. "If you go with me, I won't mind facing the blizzard again. The coffeeshop at the Co-Op ought to still be open."

"Blizzard?" Crow asked. "It's barely snowing."

Summer shrugged again, moving closer. "It's sleeting, and that's ten times worse. Give me good honest snow any day, not this stuff that can't make up its mind."

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as she stopped in front of him, folding her small hands into his wet grey jacket. He bent down, seeing his reflection in her sparkling silver eyes. _Counting the stars when it is freezing_ , that was the next line to the song. But she was the opposite of freezing. Her lips were soft and her mouth hot, and somehow she always smelled like roses.

The door clicked, and Qrow stumbled as Summer zipped away from him. He straightened up, tugging his jacket straight in embarrassment. If he felt a little flustered, though, it was nothing compared to poor Taiyang.

Their third teammate stood in the doorway, a bundle of sheets and blankets tucked under one arm. His blonde hair was mussed and darkened with sweat, and his shirt was buttoned crookedly. His blue eyes traveled from Qrow to Summer and back. The short girl was blushing a very fetching pink. Tai was tomato red - it didn't look quite as cute on him, but the sliver of abdomen peeking from behind his shirt more than made up for it.

Qrow affected a casual posture, with one hand on his hip and a casual wave of the other. "Hey, Tai. How's it going?" He wondered whether Tai's blush was because he'd seen the two of them smooching, or at being caught knocking boots with Raven.

Tai stuttered something about the laundry, and loped off towards the stairs. There was a chute in the hallway, but Qrow guessed that Tai was going to hide until the awkwardness passed by staying in the laundry room for an hour or two.

Summer made a nervous gesture, pulling her bangs out from behind her ear then tucking them away again. "Well," she mumbled. "I guess he knows now."

"I guess," Qrow answered, still looking down the hallway, although Tai was gone from sight. _Placing my hand so I can touch the moon…_ The tune buzzed inside his ears. He shook his head and stepped into their dorm room.

Taiyang's bed was bare, with the pillows stacked in the middle of the mattress. His sister was by her own bed, half dressed, fastening the back of a black bra. Qrow cursed and turned away hurriedly. Sharing a small dorm room, you got used to seeing your roomies in various states of nakedness, but the situation was different when you walked in on your sister after she'd just finished having sex with your best friend.

"Knows what?" she asked, and Qrow peered over his shoulder to check whether it was safe before turning back to her. She'd slipped on a crimson blouse, and was combing her fingers through her tousled mane of black hair.

"Huh?" Summer asked, cocking her head.

"What does Tai know?"

"Oh, that, uh," Summer stammered, pulling her notebook up as if to hide behind it.

"She already knows," Qrow sighed. "I told her last week. She just wants to make you say it."

"Spoilsport," smiled Raven, her ruddy eyes gleaming. "Sorry, Summer. It's just fun to make you blush."

Summer obliged. Her cheeks deepened from carnation pink to rose red. Raven laughed, and pulled her into a hug, kissing her forehead. "Take good care of my brother, okay? He's an idiot."

"Am not," Qrow muttered, hanging his jacket up to drip in the bathroom. He thought back over his life so far, and especially his two years here at Beacon. "Mostly."

"Only occasionally," said Summer, smiling at him as Raven let her loose.

The taller girl shrugged. "Okay, only like 78 percent of the time." Qrow turned the tap on, got his hand wet, and flicked the water at his sister. She sidestepped easily. Her grin turned dangerous. "Careful. I'm not too tired to kick your ass, you know."

His stomach flipped. He didn't want to think about what had made her tired. He turned the water off and shrugged, calculatedly casual. "You go ahead and go to sleep. Summer's apparently got an exciting evening planned of catching up on physics homework, and I'm gonna be fiddling with my new scythe design."

Summer groaned tiredly and slumped dramatically down into a desk chair. "Oh, why did you remind me? Can't I just copy one of you?"

"No," said the siblings at the same time. "It's your own fault," Raven followed up. "You wanted to go hunt Grimm instead of studying, and now you're paying the price."

Summer's head clunked onto the desk, and fake tears brimmed in her eyes. "You people are terrible friends."

"But great on the battlefield… and in the sack," said Raven lewdly, sliding into her own clean bed and closing her eyes. Her mouth curled in a satisfied smile, knowing neither of them were bold enough to respond to that zinger.

Qrow rolled his eyes. He'd thought that maybe, when he'd told Raven that he and Summer were going out, that his sister would stop flirting with her now that she was his girlfriend. A bad assumption, it turned out.

He went over to his own desk, which was covered in bits of metal and paper. He pulled a small box out of his pants pocket and sat down to open it. A pile of tiny gears gleamed up at him from their cotton wrapping. Absentmindedly, he started humming again.

 _One, two, three things are difficult for me:_

 _Counting the stars when it is freezing_

 _Placing my hand so that I can touch the moon,_

 _And understanding the mind of my loved one._


End file.
